This invention belongs to the field of techniques grouped under the term telematics, i.e. techniques having as their object long-distance data transmission and processing.
Its preferred embodiments are described for applications of orientation, direction, identification, guidance and assistance. Generally, the invention broadens the horizon of communication and corresponds to needs such as:
matters in the public interest;
changes in descriptive speech for guide purposes;
a choice of messages such as provided from a memory;
advertising offered as a support service;
selective identification; and
a new combination with a compass which automatically "pinpoints" one's location.
This invention simultaneously meets such requirements in urban, rural and interior locations, and is used with all locomotion means in all atmospheric media. The invention also provides an improved aid to driving and road safety, as a medium for directional etc., information. It optimizes use of road and highway systems since it can improve relationships between public services, government and the user. As a personal guide device, it can indicate the direction and distance to find a given location, a street, a business, a service, a hotel, assistance, a meeting, a demonstration, a show, a job or leisure activities. Also, it can guide a user to a business, such as at the back of an industrial zone, an automatic bank in service, an open gas station, a stand in the labyrinth of an exhibition, an office in the three dimensional maze of a new town, etc. It can also serve as a "regional memory" during movement of a user and when it is of interest it can obtain sports results, local news, and weather report, tips, etc. Also, it can report on road obstructions on a traveller's itinerary and how to get around them. As advertising support it can give the best price of a desired product and lead a user to the nearest sales point, while it describes to best advantage of the advertiser the area passed through by the user and guides the user as to its specialities. As a tool for a professional, it can classify and provide the possibility of finding merchandise under the best conditions. It also is able to analyze values, by using telemetry, with telediagnostics, etc. As a new type of compass at this dawning 21st century, it wirelessly connects the individual to his surroundings, the surrounds to the individual, and individuals to one another. The above features are made more clearly in the following, including in the description of specific embodiments.
To date there have been various systems of orientation, guidance, signaling and recognition, whether static, mechanical or electronic, none is comparable to this invention.
Actually, the invention uses propagation of electromagnetic radiation between a transmitter and a receiver with various complementary measurement and transmission processes, including: a unidirectional transmission of digitized data with a periodic movement of carrier frequency which allows the function of telemetry by phase scattering while transmitting the digitized data as desired; a new thin-layer compass which determines the direction of the earth's magnetic field and provides an orientation function; and a standardized frequency modulation transmission employing known means of the prior art.
U-band microwave transmitters are installed at sites suitably selected to cover well-determined nerve zones of a population. These transmitters sequentially send out recordings from a data base. Such data flow can be transmitted by a digital signal with a speed equal to about 900,000 bits/second, for example.
Also, a plurality or network of frequency modulation transmitters can be installed to cover for instance 95% of a territory. These transmitters traditionally broadcast in FM. For a national territory, the existing public and/or private networks coul be used by controlling periodicity of priority transmission.
Individual portable electronic receivers the size of a credit card are used by the users. They display on their screens and can be made to broadcast through their speakers, for instance automatically, public service announcements such as these dealing with traffic and road safety. This data comes either from a nearby sequential transmitter or from a local FM transmitter as validated by the receiver when either of those transmits data to assist driving.
The data is programmed for directional, administrative, professional, commercial, tourist, cultural, sports data, data on leisure activities, etc. Again, this data comes either from the nearby sequential transmitter or from the local FM transmitters as validated by the receiver when either of these transmits the required data.
The receiver needs only a single transmitting source to determine the local cartography and to "pinpoint a position." It has no outside antenna and weighs less than 100 grams. The receiver selects data which can prove vital for all users for a professional category, or also for a single individual, without disturbing others.
This data is, according to preference, very extensive if specific applications are sought, or limited by automatic selection of public service data or by preprogramming of priority data for the one who desires absolutely no manipulation.
The receiver is independent, but it can be connected to the car radio, to an on-board computer, to the digital counter of a vehicle and to most data processing equipment.
This invention also leads to a multitude of applications connected with the circulation of people in the interior of a building, or with coastal navigation, or with railway traffic, etc.
The invention easily supplements a simultaneous public service, from a commercial and professional perspective, as in the following manner. A first objective of this new compass has as its object to improve road safety, and to provide an aid to driving and to the relationship between public services, government and citizen-users. A second objective of this new medium aims to create a new promotional, advertising and commercial support which in particular provides "pre-sale service". A third objective of this new means of communication is to make a new professional tool capable of use in particular with telemetry, teleclassification and telediagnostics.
The realization of these three objectives according to the present invention makes possible: with government, the establishment of a national network which develops as a basis of standardization a system employing the device of the present invention; with advertising, the paying off of initial expenses for the system employing the device of the present invention, and financing the maintenance of the transmitters; mass production due to the entirely achievable interdependence of the various sectors of application of the present invention; and moreover development of a chromatic language to establish a dialogue between the user and the device of the present invention, namely an interaction language that can be used in all languages.
The main operating device of the invention is based on the use of a pulse-code modulated (PCM) unidirectional connection, using a frequency that permits the telemetry (distance determination) function, and on a system which determines the direction of the magnetic field of the earth.
Traditionally, the known purposes using the propagation of electromagnetic radiation are of two types. A first type of telecommunications systems are known in which an electromagnetic radiation beam, modulated according to a standardized process (AM, FM, SSB, PM, FSK, PSK, etc.) serves as vector with a series of data, transmitted from the transmitting source to the receiver(s). This vector indicates to the receiver the direction from which the transmission originated. According to a variation of this type, two or more different modulation processes can be applied to the same radiation beam to transmit simultaneously several independent sequences of data. Further diagnostic systems are known in which an electromagnetic radiation beam going through a medium or being emitted via a substrate, the medium or substrate being subjected to the diagnostics, is analyzed by a measuring system, which makes it possible to deduce one or more physical characteristics of the medium or substrate.
The diagnostic function necessitates the comparison of the energy spectrum (amplitude A and phase (phi) as a function of the wavelength (lambda) received by the receiver with the reference spectrum emitted by the source, which is known.
At a time t, the complex amplitude of the wave received by the receiver is: ##EQU1##
Because of the different propagation speeds of different pulse components, a wide-band means, i.e. whose spectrum extends over a wide angular frequency (omega), is not usually used in telecommunication, but only in close diagnostics.
This invention uses phase scattering of an electromagnetic radiation beam going through a material medium which can be the earth's atmosphere separating the transmitter from the receiver, or a substrate separating a radiation applicator from the receiver, or information on the material of the substrate itself can be determined from such phase information if said substrate constitutes the transmitter. According to the prior art, the absorption, i.e., the amplitude attenuation, of an electromagnetic wave beam through the atmosphere has been used for instance for:
1. measuring concentration of water vapor of the upper atmosphere; and
2. confidentializing of short-range radiotelephony by using absorption by the 3-rho-sigma absorption band of oxygen in the U-band (60 GHz) to limit the possibilities of interception of message outside the beam.